One of the most useful resources is also free. GnuBG is a complete neural net which can play backammon at what would be a truly world class level for a human. It also allows you to analyse positions, matches, cube decisions, doubling windows etc. As it's freeware distributed under the GNU general public licence it will cost you nothing to use it beyond the time required to learn to use the software.

GnuBG may be downloaded from : http://www.gnubg.org/

Learning to use it is a bit of a chore but fortunately there is a very good tutorial at gammonlife.com: http://www.gammonlife.com/gnu/index.htm

I wonder who Robert-Jan Veldhuizen, the tutorial's author, is?



spielberg / Steve

lol I know that mradica - I was teasing a tiny giant.

Thanks for the sites tho' - that www.bgonline.org was new to me.

I think I remember NIHILIST, aka, gammon_gangsta, saying he would teach bg for $50 an hour.  You can find him on FIBS.

socksey



I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure. - unknown

Some methods of using gnubg to improve your play spring to mind. If you can identify a weak area of your game then you can concentrate on improving that area. Play a few matches against gnubg while using its "hint" ability and try to see if there's a pattern to your errors. When gnubg tells you you're about to make a terrible move look at its analysis in more depth (by for example looking at temperature charts for your/its cube decisions) and ask yourself "what have I missed?". Oftentimes you can realise the mistake you've made. For "narrow" decisions (eg is this too good to cube?) use its ability to analyse positions and tweak the position you're considering until you notice when the decision changes. Backgammon is a game of pattern recognition but learning some easy rules (eg kleinmann / thorpe counts for race decisions) is a very simple way to improve your game. Another very useful technique is to watch the experts. Game records of some truly great players are easily available and if you load these matches into gnubg and go thru' them move by move thinking of what move you'd have made then lots of times (at least for me) you'll see "surprising" moves when, usually, the expert has seen something you've missed.

i will teach you to play backgammon. i havnt got a clue what i am doing and dont even know where i am half of the time.......